The People that Time Forgot

By Edgar Rice Burroughs

In uncharted Caprona, an island lost from the map of the earth, where time had stopped and all the primeval creatures of long-gone ages still prowled, Bowen Tyler was lost. To find Tyler, Thomas Billings traveled across the world to Caprona with every advantage the modern world could afford. A light hydroplane would allow him to scale the perilous wall of cliffs that surrounded the island, and rifles, pistols, and ammunition would provide protection against the monstrous prehistoric beings Tyler had so vividly described. But even stranger mysteries awaited him where that barbaric civilization hid, torn between the impassable jungle on the one side and an unknown menace on the other.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
• Release date: Apr 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781627930420

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) is the creator of Tarzan, one of the most popular fictional characters of all time, and John Carter, hero of the Barsoom science fiction series. Burroughs was a prolific author, writing almost 70 books before his death in 1950, and was one of the first authors to popularize a character across multiple media, as he did with Tarzan’s appearance in comic strips, movies, and merchandise. Residing in Hawaii at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, Burroughs was drawn into the Second World War and became one of the oldest war correspondents at the time. Edgar Rice Burroughs’s popularity continues to be memorialized through the community of Tarzana, California, which is named after the ranch he owned in the area, and through the Burrough crater on Mars, which was named in his honour.

Reviews for The People that Time Forgot

[la2bkk · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Standard Burroughs fare. Easy reading, somewhat engaging but ultimately little more than dime store science fiction. Hero battles nasty Prussians, ferocious creatures from a long lost era and saves damsel in distress.For those interested in 19th century science fiction, my opinion is that time is better spent on the likes of H.G. Wells or Jules Verne.

[john257hopper · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is very much in the style of Conan Doyle's Lost World and Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, but is not up to the standard of either of those. The characters are flat and unmemorable and not much actually happens - indeed the main part of the story does not start until 40% of the way through after various skirmishes between English and German sailors in 1916. I think I will track down the sequels, but it isn't great stuff by any means. 3/5

[randystafford · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's been said that the golden age of Burroughs is 12 or, sometimes, 14. Well, I tried to read Burroughs at both ages, and it didn't take. Way too many coincidences for me.Well, it's been more than 25 years since I've read Burroughs. Inspired by watching the latest movie version of this book and hearing the Caspak series praised as his best outside of the Tarzan and John Carter series, I decided to give ERB another try.The plot is pretty straightforward. Narrator Bowen Tyler has his ship torpedoed out from under him in 1916. He is picked up by a British tug - but not before meeting the instantaneously recognizable love of his life, Lys La Rue, another passenger, as they float around in the water. Said ship is then sunk - by the same German U-Boat that torpedoed Bowen's ship, and Bowen, Lys, and several of the tug's crewmen are taken prisoners aboard the sub. A struggle for control of the vessel ensues. Not to fear, though. Our narrator just happens to belong to a submarine manufacturing family out of Santa Monica, and they built the sub he's now on. Of course, the situation is a bit complicated by Lys being the U-Boat commander's fiancé.And the coincidences are just beginning. But, after about 50 pages into this slender, 126 page book, the real story begins after landfall on Caspak - a lost continent full of what should be extinct animals from Earth's distant past. Naturally, dinos are going to be fought, Prussians are going to be surly and treacherous, and Lys is going to get kidnapped. And Burroughs does do something genuinely novel with the primitive humans of this land.Burroughs, whatever his other faults as a writer, is a master of pacing. And, however melodramatic the scenes of Bowen and Lys acknowledging their love for each other are and their philosophical discussions, there are some moments of grandeur and poignancy as they face their solitary fate on Caspak - all related in the manuscript Bowen has put in a thermos and tossed into the sea.This is the first third of a serial originally published in 1918, and this is one Burroughs series I will be completing.

[sylak_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is split right down the centre:The first half is a WWI spy drama set partially on-board a German U-boat in the Pacific Ocean.After his ship is sunk in a torpedo attack, Bowen J. Tyler, Jr, (ironically son of the wealthy industrialist who built the killer sub. prior to the war) is temporarily rescued, along with the only other survivor Miss Lys La Rue, by a passing vessel which suffers a similar bombardment shortly after.In a daring assault this crew aided by Bowen's inside knowledge of the enemy vessel board the U-boat and manage to take it over only to have their efforts at getting home thwarted by constant sabotage attempts - not to mention the fact that with the radio dead they cannot hope to get to safe waters without becoming a target themselves!In the confusion, and with malfunctioning navigation, they come across a lost island, cut off from the rest of the world by an almost impregnable cliff wall, but manage to steer their vessel safely through a narrow underwater shaft only to emerge on the other side in a kingdom frozen in time - a time when dinosaurs ruled supreme!On the surface this classic adventure is really no more far fetched than many of the stories written today; but the world was a much bigger place a hundred years ago, and what with today's GPS and Google Earth on every home PC, it may take a little more effort to accept the storyline. The same adventure written today would likely have to take place on a distant planet in a far off galaxy, but the thrill of this was the possibility that somewhere in a remote region of our own planet such a place might just still exist?Like I said it is two very different stories joined together; and I for one couldn't wait for the prehistoric dino-rampage to begin, so it lost one star from my perspective. Do read the second instalment 'The people that time forgot' which for me ticked all the right boxes.Worthwhile reading - YES.

[rachelfromsarasota · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is another early 20th century classic adventure yarn, and I do mean yarn. I would suggest putting off reading the introduction, by science fiction author Brian Aldiss, until after one has finished the book, in order to get the full flavor of Burroughs' plot. Reading Burroughs, once again, is like stepping into Dr. Who's Tardis -- one is transported back in time to a world where manly men fight for the right; German followers of Kaiser Wilhelm are cowardly and dishonorable; and modern women faintly cheer their men on, appropriately and demurely, from the sidelines. All that was to be expected -- but what was unexpected were the interestingly drawn characters of the "savage" women that a few of Burroughs' luckier adventurers encounter. These bronzed, lithe, warrior queens are no shrinking flowers of femininity. And though one stout-hearted explorer fights his own physical attraction to the sweet little "savage" who's attached herself to him, in the end he comes to realize that beneath the bronzed skin of his little jungle queen there beats a heart as delicate and as feminine as that of any modern, whiter woman.It was a fun read, made even more enjoyable by reading Aldiss' forward after I had finished the book. Aldiss is clearly a Burroughs fan, and though he dutifully points out the utter ridiculousness of Burrough's theories of evolutionary ascent, as depicted in the novel, he urges readers to set aside this outdated and invalid basic premise and to enjoy the book for what it is -- a swashbuckling adventure tale set in the mists of a lost world, where time and nature have taken a very different course from the outside world. The book is not as good as TARZAN OF THE APES, and doesn't hold a candle to Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD, but it was a fun and exciting trip into an alternate reality.

[andyray_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the best novels written by ERB, the Amercian protagonist (whose name is finally given us in the last few pages) and his lofe-love go through many adventures before becoming Adam and Eve on an unknown continent completely cut off by high, almost impassable cliffs. Well, they ARE impassable. They must reach the interior of the continent by sailing UNDER the cliffs in a commandeered German U2 sub, which the American's family made for Germany, yet.

[stbalbach_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) was an America author who lived just outside of LA who wrote over 60 fantasy novels. His most famous works are the "Tarzan" series and the "John Carter of Mars" series. He was heavily influenced by Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines" and "The Land that Time Forgot" was a direct heir in the 'Lost World' genre. "The Land That Time Forgot" was also very influential in the invention of the screenplay "King Kong", as was Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" (1912).